


Just Stop Your Crying (It's A Sign of the Times)

by jungkooksfic



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, But there's fluff I promise, Clay | Dream is So Whipped (Video Blogging RPF), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Imagine listening to a song and crying to it and feeling the need to write angst, M/M, Oblivious GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Self-Esteem Issues, Sign of the times, So much hurt/comfort, no beta we die like men, that's what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:08:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28886610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jungkooksfic/pseuds/jungkooksfic
Summary: They were so in love that it physically hurt. But still, they stayed in love and together, endured the pain.Dream and George don’t have it easy; luckily, easy wasn’t what they were looking for.
Relationships: Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 87





	Just Stop Your Crying (It's A Sign of the Times)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is mostly self-indulgence on my end. It's bittersweet, I'd say, because it's super fluffy but a little bit sad.
> 
> I one hundred percent suggest blaring Sign of the Times by Harry Styles before reading this to really set the mood.
> 
> Happy reading!

It wasn’t so bad, at first.

Being in love in a world as cruel as this one.

Even in a love void of physical injury or death, the pain could be unbearable, sometimes.

Dream didn’t care, though.

He ignored the snide comments from his mother and the glances from his father as he held a plane ticket to Britain tight in his hand. George had never seen his face before, and the moment he stepped into the linoleum flooring and too-loud main area of the airport would be the first time they would see each other, face-to-face.

It was so cinematic, the way they ran across the airport and practically crushed each other into a hug. Dream was so tired, eyes wanting to close after the exhaustion of being unable to sleep on an international flight, but if he had to cross oceans with less than five minutes under his belt to be able to have George in his arms, so be it.

The rest of the trip was a blur of happiness and trying to hang on tight to the moments the world spared them. They traveled all around Britain and George showed him to all the little places that no usual tourist would think to visit: the roof of his parents house, where he could lay out a blanket and watch the sunrise; and this one peculiar place, about an hour’s drive from George’s house to the coastline where there was this one pair of stairs that went down the side of a cliff and down to the Atlantic Ocean water, where the dark waves lapped over the stairs.

 _“I just think it looks cool,”_ George had said as he looked at the stairs in awe. _“Like there could be a whole civilization down there that the stairs lead to, and we’d never know.”_

Dream felt like the stairs lead to a new world, similarly to how this big, wide ocean separated him and George.

Sometimes, it felt like there was a whole lot more than an ocean separating them.

Eventually, the trip ended, and Dream had to return to America (but not after delaying his return to a full week later than he originally intended.)

After that, things between them were a little more tense than usual. Even the fans and the majority of Twitter was beginning to pick up on it. Dream hadn’t face revealed to the public yet, George hadn’t told anyone he was gay— well, he told Dream, while Dream was in Britain. It was simple.

 _“I’m gay,”_ George had blurted.

They stared at each other for a long time. They’d been in the middle of a game of Minecraft, a version where they coded it so Dream was George’s dog. A test run before they streamed it the following day.

 _“Oh,”_ Dream had whispered. _“That’s… poggers.”_

It was something about the look of fear in George’s eyes that made Dream want to say _who hurt you?_ Despite the two of them laughing and Dream’s underwhelming reaction, George still looked nervous from the way his hands fidgeted with the wire connecting his headphones to their gaming setup.

 _“Really?”_ George had countered timidly. _“You don’t… think I’m weird?”_

_“What? No, no- of course not! George, you’re still my best friend. This doesn’t change a thing.”_

He hadn’t lied.

It wasn’t the fact that George was gay that changed their friendship.

It was the fact that Dream didn’t know how he felt about him changed their friendship.

Dream lost count of the number of times when he would watch George’s streams, the ones he would have his camera on, and lose his trail of thought just watching him. He didn’t mean to be creepy, but something about the way George’s eyes would flicker from his game to the camera, or how his lips turned up in a smile whenever Dream did or said something stupid. It was absolutely enthralling.

At first, it terrified Dream.

Then, he got used to it. He became so accustomed to the feeling of his heart fizzling into his stomach, or the jolt of cold blood whenever George would tease him, that it almost became the new normal for him. But alas, there was always the thrill that never got old.

Yet, nothing happened until George visited him in Florida.

It was early spring when George came. Warm, because that’s how it always was in the miserable state, but not warm enough to justify the fact that the two of them decided to go to the beach at midnight.

Despite George’s meager protests of _no way, Dream, I’m not swimming in there,_ they found themselves waist-deep in the ocean flickering with the reflection of the sliver of moonlight and the beautiful tapestry of stars and glitter above their heads. At some point, George had stepped on a rock, mistaking it for a fish or something and screaming so loud that Dream’s ears were ringing, but he laughed and laughed so hard that his stomach hurt and his head ached until George was laughing too— that pitchy, hiccuping thing he did when he thought something was really funny.

“I’ve had enough of you,” George had said, voice teasing and testing as he dramatically began to storm from the water.

“No, wait-”

Dream had caught him, leaning forward and arms wrapping around his waist from behind.

See, this was supposed to be _funny._ George was supposed to smack him and call him a simp or something.

He wasn’t supposed to shiver (not from the cold) and freeze up before casting Dream a glance over his shoulder that couldn’t be deciphered into any one emotion.

“Uh,” George had said, yet he made no move to get Dream to let go of him.

“Sorry!” Dream had burst, letting go of him. He felt so stupid in that moment, thinking he’d stomped on the delicate line separating their friendship from romance. Really, he had, but not to George’s discomfort apparently as the other was quick to blurt,

“No, wait-”

The exact words Dream had said before he’d wrapped his arms around his friend, but this time, it was George to close the space between them. He didn’t kiss him, but he might as well have because they were in the water, chests together, George’s arms around Dream’s neck and Dream’s arms around his waist and they were _looking_ at each other.

“I liked that,” George said, voice hushed, timid, and Dream couldn’t see his face clearly in the dark but he could hear in his voice how he blushed.

“Can I…” Dream’s eyes flickered from George’s lips up to his eyes. “Can I kiss you..?”

There was a moment of panic. A moment where neither knew if Dream had actually said that or if this was some kind of hallucination. Dream opened his mouth to protest, but George interrupted the action.

“God,” George had whispered, “ _please.”_

And that was their first kiss.

The first of many, to Dream’s relief.

It was perfect. Kind of. As perfect as a first kiss could be. It was soft, slow, a little scared and still trying to figure each other out. But an image Dream would never be able to take from his mind was the one of George’s closed eyes slowly drifting open after breaking away from the kiss before leaning forward again and, against Dream’s lips, asking a hushed “again?” to which Dream just laughed and pulled him in again. That second kiss was _perfect,_ though. George’s hands wandered up to his hand and Dream just kept pulling him closer, closer, closer until he waslifting him up by the backs of his thighs to level their heights. They’d both laughed at the small sound of surprise George made when he did that.

They didn’t think about the consequences back then, when they kissed and kissed until they were breathless and practically falling asleep on each other, and they walked back to Dream’s car, hand-in-hand, falling asleep in each other’s arms, that night.

George had to leave Florida two days after that, but they made sure to talk things out before then. Dream confessed his love for George and George did the same.

In that moment, everything was easy. They were over the hurtle they both had imagined: reciprocation.

Little did they know that the true hurtle was one they had been too busy standing in the shadow of to notice.

They had to resort to dating online because neither of them had all the money or time in the world to fly across oceans to see each other. Dream had a life in Florida and George had a life in Britain. They weren’t ready to sacrifice everything just yet. They tested the waters first.

Even though sometimes, shipping his hoodies to George and getting flowers shipped back didn’t feel like it was, well, perfect, it was _enough._ Enough to fuel his heedless, unyielding love for the other.

Even when they fought, even when George said _we can’t do this forever, Clay!_ and Dream would say _you’re being selfish!,_ they would always make up. _Always._

They faced their next hurtle: distance. Making things work even when George couldn’t sit between Dream’s legs and Dream couldn’t rest his chin on George’s head as they watched some shitty movie on Netflix, but laughed at the stupid jokes anyway and gorged on way too much popcorn.

Distance wasn’t too hard of a problem to conquer as it had a simple solution, which was moving in together. They settled for living in New York as it felt like a new beginning for both of them. A new chapter. At first, Dream missed being able to drive five minutes to see his sister, but he knew it was worth it when he got to kiss George good morning each day, and fall asleep to the sounds of his heavy breaths.

For a while, it didn’t feel like they had a hurtle standing between them and the finish line. Whatever the finish line was.

But when Dream noticed this hurtle, it was impossible to miss.

He’d never forget the night when he realized that the entire world was their next hurtle. Their next challenge. Their problem.

It was a cool, autumn night. Just cold enough to keep the windows of the apartment shut and the type of mood to light candles and make the whole place smell like pumpkin spice and fall. Dream remembered how he’d padded down the hall, dressed casually in George’s hoodie and lazily-put-on wool socks that made little slipping sounds as he walked across the wood floor of the living room.

He had opened the ajar door to the bedroom, peaking in at first to make sure he wasn’t interrupting one of George’s streams. Though, honestly, whenever Dream interrupted George’s streams, people found it adorable, for the post part.

Oh, yeah, They ended up establishing their relationship to their fans, as well as Dream’s face.

It was relieving, somewhat, to not feel the need to mask his love for his best friend as purely platonic, hiding it through jokes and surface-level teasing that always left the other giggling.

Now, he could flirt without pressure.

Or so he though.

When he bumped open that door to their shared bedroom, there he saw George. His George, who was always smiling and laughing and saying _stop it, you idiot_ when he was flustered or the way his brow raised when he was being flirtatious. Dream had memorized everything about him.

But he hadn’t memorized this: the sound of heavy, hallow sobs. Muffled into a pillow.

Dream didn’t think. All he did was practically run across the floor of their bedroom, jumping over stray shirts and shoes on the floor and sitting on bed beside his boyfriend. Now that he was closer, in the dim lighting of George’s still-on monitor and the moonlight drifting in through the curtains, he could see George’s curled form on the bed, fists clutching the blanket tight and his entire body shaking. It wasn’t like Dream had never seen him cry. He’d seen him cry after they watched _Bambi_ (George denied it but Sapnap could attest that George definitely was sniffling), he’d seen him laugh himself to tears. He’d even seen him cry out of stress when he had too much on his plate, or when he put too much pressure on himself. On those times, all Dream had to do was massage his tense shoulders and say _you’re here, you’re fine_ and George would be fine.

But this was different.

This was hard, merciless sobs wracked with pain that Dream didn’t know George had been feeling all this time.

How long had he been in pain, for? Why?

“George,” Dream murmurs, his hands resting on George’s tensed form. George stiffens.

“G-go away,” George hiccups, “pleas- please, just- just go away-”

“Did I hurt you?” Dream asks. His voice was soft and terrified, but he tried to keep it level. “George, did I do something wrong?”

George hiccups again and he shakes his head profusely, “n-no, no, it’s just- it’s-” Dream waits patiently. “It’s stupid, it’s stupid- I don’t want to-” But his words were becoming lost between the thick folds of cries and small whines as he tried to shove his face further in the pillow he’d been using as a shield. Dream knew the different kind of “go away”s that George had: the ones where he needed to be alone, and the ones where he didn’t want to be a bother but he really needed someone. This was the second option.

“Tell me if you want me to go,” Dream murmurs as, gradually, he pries the pillow from George’s hands to see his face. He scoots closer to him. “Tell me if you need some space,” he says, and he means it. Sometimes being alone was the best option, but sometimes clinging to someone and bawling your eyes out was the best option, too.

He swiped his thumb along George’s dampened cheeks, and he watches as more tears form in those warm eyes he’d memorized each color of by now. He watched as George looked at him in awe before in an instant, he was breaking apart; crying, shaking, sniffling and sobbing as his head bowed and his hair got in his face. But Dream still couldn’t shake how beautiful he was, even when he was shattered to pieces.

Dream hugged him, tight, bringing him into his chest and rubbing a hand along his back. He didn’t say anything because he knew George was too overwhelmed to process anything in this state.

From where they were in a bundle on the bed, blanket forgotten and tossed aside, George clinging to the material of Dream’s sweatshirt, the only sounds being George’s muffled cries and Dream’s soft murmurings of _shh, shh, it’s alright_ even though he didn’t know what he was comforting him for, Dream discovered the source of George’s pain.

On George’s computer, still illuminated, he could see the messages. The Instagram direct messages, the Twitter comments. But on that screen, he saw the screenshot of a single message from a Twitch chat that someone had tweeted.

The chat read as _oml George how does it feel to date someone way out of your league?_

The Twitter caption wasn’t much kinder.

_Lmao he’s lucky isn’t he?_

But the comments section was horrible.

_I wonder what Dream sees in him_

_George is kind of boring though???_

_Maybe they just want the clout, ngl_

_It’s the pretending to be gay for me_

_Dream come on smh find someone better_

It wasn’t like the comments section was exclusively made up of these absolute assholes.

But the messages of _don’t be a dick_ and _they’re perfect for each other, leave them alone_ were entirely drowned out.

Dream remembered his first and only incident of being sent to the principle’s office. He had been ten years old, in trouble for confronting this kid who had been bullying his sister all year long. This kid had shoved her in the mud, called her names that were childish but it was still cruel to do such a thing to a young girl.

Dream didn’t do anything extreme. Well, a punch in the face wasn’t super extreme, in his opinion, in comparison to the hell this prick had put his sister through.

 _“I know you were trying to protect your sister,”_ the principle says, _“but do you think that punching him in the face was the best option?”_

Dream had scrunched his nose before eventually, he admitted, _“no. But he wasn’t listening to me!”_

The rest of the interaction was a haze. Dream insisting that he did nothing wrong, that this kid should be expelled for tormenting his innocent sister. All he really remembered by now was the smell of the office, which smelled like mint and old paper and the smell of the rubber gloves dentists wear, and the mixed expression of admiration and disappointment on the principle’s face. She heaved a sigh as she eventually said,

_“Clay, he didn’t listen to you because you were calling him names. When you call someone names, they don’t listen.”_

_“But-”_

_“If you put someone in a room,”_ the principle patiently interrupted, _“and had people line up and say one hundred nice things to them and have one person say one mean thing, can you guess what they would remember out of all that?”_

Dream was quiet for a moment before he said, _“the mean thing?”_

 _“The mean thing,”_ the principle confirms. _“I’m not trying to say that you didn’t have the right intentions, or the right feelings. You just should have tried reasoning with him first. Or, better yet, tell your teacher.”_

Dream really couldn’t argue with that, so he purses his lips. _“…yeah, I guess so.”_

The kid ended up being punished accordingly with a suspension and a serious talking to, so he didn’t show up in the nightly conversations over dinner anymore. But the words of the principle resonated with Dream.

_Can you guess what they would remember out of all that?_

That meager, insignificant memory was all Dream could think of when he stared at the screen with mean thing after mean thing. Cruel comment after cruel comment. He could feel the anger rising deep in his bones as he felt George sob against his shirt, the same anger he felt when he watched this kid hurl insults at his sister.

A sense of responsibility. A sense of helplessness.

But he was beginning to realize that he couldn’t protect George in the same way he couldn’t protect his sister.

Consider this a lesson learned from his ten-year-old self. He wasn’t going to punch the bully. He wasn’t going to hurl insults back at the Twitch chat, or let the people of Twitter see his wrath.

He was going to sit on this bed and hold George close.

_“Just stop your crying, it’s a sign of the times.”_

He could feel George still for an instant before his crying quietly resumed. Dream didn’t think he had the best singing voice, but George loved it when he sang. George loved to lay his head in the crook of Dream’s neck and murmur _sing for me, sing for me_ and Dream would sing the softest tunes, opposing George’s love for trap music, but he loved it anyway.

_“We gotta get away from here, we gotta get away from here.”_

His voice was imperfect, and it crackled a little over the notes he wasn’t as well acquainted with, but it was enough for George to focus on as opposed to the hundreds of mean voices trying to bully him out of his own head. _“Stop your crying, baby, it’ll be alright.”_

That was the last line Dream sung for that night, but it was enough for George as the tight fistful of Dream’s shirt relaxed, and the tears stopped falling as quickly, and the heavy sobs turned into slow, exhausted breaths. George had moved on from clinging to his boyfriend and now just slumped there.

“I’m tired, Dream,” he mutters, his head resting on Dream’s shoulder. His voice was broken, no louder than a whisper.

“I know,” Dream mutters back. He presses a kiss to the top of his hair.

That was the night they realized they were up against the world.

But it was also the night they realized they didn’t have to conquer the world to be happy.

There was no finish line. There was no checkpoint to reach or path to step on that would guarantee them security and eternal happiness. Nothing could do that. Dream definitely learned that as he held a sobbing boyfriend in his arms because the world told him he wasn’t good enough for his own lover.

Sometimes, he wished their life could be as simple as when they kissed under the stars for the first time— awkward, too soft and too much, teeth in the way and hands stiff and unsure. When they acted like two hopelessly smitten teenagers when they stared at phone screens and waited for texts. But then Dream would dismiss the idea immediately as he knew to get to where they were now, a sense of completion whenever George rested his head on his shoulder after a long day or the wordless interactions as they just held each other on their shitty little couch in the living room. To get to all of that, they had to go through all the bullshit the world was going to put them through.

It wasn’t so bad, at first.

Being in love in a world as cruel as this one.

Even in a love void of physical injury or death, the pain could be unbearable, sometimes.

Dream didn’t care, though.

He didn’t care what tragedies the world would punt at them because even if it was cruel and awful and the fact that people outside could still be smiling while behind a wall his entire world was falling apart really twisted the knife in his pain, he knew that it was all worth it when he realized all he had.

Because he had George. And he had Sapnap. And he had a family that could be flawed, yes, but they loved him and he loved them.

“That’s my new favorite song,” George had murmured one day as they sat in a grassy field a good drive into the countryside of New York, somewhere between the city and Albany. When they needed an escape and had no streaming on their schedule, they would come here, in a sunny field with the occasional blue flowers that George always stared at with wide eyes because, unlike most flowers, they didn’t blend into the grass for him.

“What song?” Dream inquired. They were comfortable like this, laying on their rumpled picnic blanket, foot containers strewn on the far side of it, grocery bag used and forgotten (they didn’t have a proper basket, so they had to settle for a plastic bag that George complained would kill the sea turtles, and forced Dream to donate to their local marine life charity). George had his head in Dream’s lap, whatever book he was reading held in his hands. Dream was reading it over his shoulder, but the book sat neglected on George’s lap as they had been staring up at the clouds in the sky for the past half hour anyway.

“Sign of the Times,” George returned.

“I thought you liked trap music?” Dream had responded, but he figured that night all those months ago might have something to do with this.

“I do, but I like this song, too.”

“Why, because Harry Styles is hot?”

“No, you big simp.”

They chuckle a little and take the time to point out a cloud that distinctly looked like a Minecraft creeper, but eventually, they drifted back to their initial conversation.

“I think it’s… kind of a tragedy, that song,” George continued. Dream watched him talk. The sunlight looked pretty on his skin, like this. He resisted the urge to pick one of the flowers and place it in George’s hair. He’d let him finish talking first.

“Why’s that?” Dream answered.

“Well, because no matter how hard life is, it keeps going.”

“Yeah,” Dream says. “That’s kind of depressing, George.”

George offers a laugh, but he continues. “But there’s a silver lining.”

“Oh?” Dream says, intrigued.

“Life might be a piece of shit sometimes, but it makes up for it in good things, I think.”

Dream hums in agreement. “What, like me?”

He fully expected a half-assed joke or a smack to the arm, but instead, he got a sweet, genuine smile directed at him that he definitely wasn’t ready for. He feels his face heat up. “Yeah,” George says. “Like you.”

The world was cruel.

But it made up for it by giving him the best thing he could ever ask for:

Time. Time to fall in love with George, and fall in love with him again.

Time to promise him the world, good and bad.

**Author's Note:**

> apparently Sign of the Times is written about a mom dying in child birth... yeah let's just pretend it's about being in love.


End file.
